Tibetan Medicine Encyclopedia Overview

The THL Medicine Encyclopedia contains resources that are organized into several themes. Resources on medical practice currently feature videos filmed in Lhasa’s Mentsikhang (sman rtsis khang) and neighborhood clinics, transcripts and translations of many of those videos, and essays about the issues addressed therein. Resources on Tibetan pharmacy feature a series of nearly forty videos documenting the process of making traditional medicines in the Factory in Lhasa. The section on medical imagery focuses on discussions of the famous seventeenth-century set of medical paintings. Resources on history and religion address the history of Tibetan medicine and the understanding of medical concepts as inextricably embedded in cultural, social, religious and ideological contexts. Finally, a resource area focused on bibliographic resources offers information on Tibetan medical texts and secondary sources for the study of Tibetan medicine.